My voice may not be a siren, but at least it sure as hell
isn’t a bullhorn that could rupture eardrums in a split second.
I will never be able to talk about my feelings
the way a trail of bloody footprints leads to the crime scene
of a murder victim: clear and full of proof,
or carry my body and presence like an exclamation point.
I will always be a comma instead, a pause
full of silence for someone else to fill.
For me, words are like coins tossed into a fountain:
you only use them when you have a wish,
when you know they’ll be put to good use.
And just because I’ll never be the first to raise my hand
to respond to a question doesn’t mean the answer
isn’t already written in my bones.
I fall in love with my hands first, not with my voice,
quietly but as passionately as the string of constellations
that form Orion’s Belt: they may make no noise at all,
but they still light up the entire sky.